Cultural Premises, Political Structures and Dynamics

Using the typical early pre-colonial African state as well as the Byzantine and Chinese empires as examples, the authors argue that the proper understanding of the state and, more generally, of political institutions and processes, requires that political actors and actions be studied in the context of the culture of which they are a part. The three case studies provided show that the impact of cultural factors on political processes, specifically the impact of a society's fundamental cultural premises, or what might be called a society's vision of civilization, is effected through the activities of and the types of coalition formed by a society's elites.